Prince Harry's campaign to restore his police bodyguards has been given a boost after the British Government ordered a review of protective security for public figures, saying "there is insufficient protection for those who serve."
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had their round-the-clock Metropolitan Police bodyguards removed in 2020 when they quit royal duties for a new life in America and Harry has been campaigning to get them back ever since. He lost two lawsuits at the High Court in London followed by an appeal.
The British Government has now launched a major review of protective security arrangements for politicians and, reportedly, royals will be considered too. That raises the prospect that Harry could have a new avenue to argue his case.
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Why It Matters
Prince Harry said previously that the U.K. was not safe for his family unless his police bodyguards were returned but he moved to England with Meghan Markle, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet in August anyway.
Beyond his fears of attacks by far-right groups, comments in his book Spare about killing 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan during his time serving as a co-pilot and gunner on an Apache attack helicopter could make him a target.
"While in the heat and fog of combat, I didn’t think of those twenty-five as people," he wrote. "You can’t kill people if you think of them as people. You can’t really harm people if you think of them as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board."
Anas Haqqani, a senior aide in the Afghan government, was quoted by ABC as saying: "The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return."
Harry also described in his book Spare how expensive private security is.
The British Government's Security Review
The government's review was not prompted by Harry's campaign specifically, but follows the murder of Ann Widdecombe, a former Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party who was a spokeswoman for Reform UK at the time of her death in July. The Guardian's political editor Pippa Crerar wrote on X: "This includes high-profile individuals (including royals)."
U.K. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the policy on Monday in a statement to the House of Commons.
"It is clear there is insufficient protection for those who serve," she said. "I can therefore announce today that I will expand, with immediate effect, police support to political figures who are not currently Members of Parliament.
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"This will include former Members of Parliament, peers and party spokespeople, giving them access to a named police officer, as well as help with wider security measures."
Harry currently has a similar level of support, having been given a number his team can call to consult with the police on security matters.
"But we must go further," Mahmood said. "So today, I also announce an independent, root-and-branch review of the protective security provided by the state to those in public life."
Mahmood indicated there would potentially be more funding available to meet the needs of those considered most at risk.
"This is rightly an independent review but my commitment is that its findings must and will lead to tangible change, and that the state’s resources will be rebalanced to protect those people and places that need it most," she said.
Prince Harry's Threat Level
Harry has long advocated for a shift in the approach taken to royal protection away from offering resources based on role to allocating based on risk.
In his 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview, the prince explained how he came to lose his protection officers.
"Their justification is a change in status, of which I pushed back and said, ‘Well, is there a change of threat or risk?’" he said. "And after many weeks of waiting, eventually I got the confirmation that no, the risk and threat hasn’t changed."
Nevertheless, because of the Sussexes change of status the protection officers were withdrawn.
The existence of the review does not guarantee they will get their security back and Mahmood's words suggest his threat level may be considered alongside 650 MPs as well as numerous other aides, spokespeople and former lawmakers in Britain.
Harry has traditionally made his case in comparison to the threat level posed to other royals but there have been a series of high-profile attacks on politicians. Beyond Widdecombe, Mahmood mentioned the murders of Labour MP Jo Cox, who was shot and stabbed in 2016, and the Conservative Party's Sir David Amess, who was murdered in 2021. Sir Stephen Timms, an MP and Labour Government minister, was also stabbed in 2010.
Harry was told last year that he would have an updated threat assessment conducted by a Risk Management Board, convened by RAVEC, the Home Office committee responsible for allocating police protection to royals and other VIPs.
However, months later the assessment had not been completed and shortly before he arrived for a visit to Britain in July he was told he would not get a police protection team.
Newsweek was told at the time that the decision left Harry distraught and caused tension with the palace, since King Charles III's most senior aide, Sir Clive Alderton, sits on RAVEC. Some in Harry's camp believe Alderton could have secured Harry police protection officers, Newsweek has been told, while palace insiders insisted this was not correct.
The government review, to be conducted by a former national security adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, could offer Harry another pathway that bypasses the palace staffers he has traditionally mistrusted.
Prince Harry's Motivation for Police Security Campaign
Harry has argued for years that he felt his family would not be safe in Britain without police protection and in a May 2025 interview told the BBC: "I can't see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point."
"I love my country, I always have done, despite what some people in that country have done and I think that it's really quite sad that I won't be able to show my children my homeland," he said.
The issue has also stirred tensions with the monarchy, with the prince previously suggesting his police bodyguards were removed in order to pressure him not to quit royal dutie. In the same BBC interview, he said: "This, at the heart of it, is a family dispute, and it makes me really, really sad that we're sitting here today, five years later, where a decision that was made most likely, in fact I know, to keep us under the roof."
In his book Spare he described the financial pressure the decision exerted on him. He said he "scrambled to find new security. I spoke to consultants, gathered estimates. I filled a notebook with research. The Palace directed me to a firm, which quoted me a price. Six million a year. I slowly hung up."
Harry acknowledged that "the question of how to pay for a home and security kept Meg and me awake at nights" and added that when they signed "several corporate partnerships," likely a reference to Netflix and Spotify, he said it would help "pay for our security."
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Tony Phillips.